


when the edges are firm and the centres are soft

by doublehockeysticks (jamesiee)



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Baking, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Soft Hockey Boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 04:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18381350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamesiee/pseuds/doublehockeysticks
Summary: It wasn’t supposed to be a thing is the thing.Sure, Tyson likes lava cake, and sure, he doesn’t even need to look at the index card with the recipe written under some rogue chocolate fingerprints when he gets a craving for chocolate anymore, and sure, maybe, he’s become as predictable as his mother when it comes to contributing to team potlucks.But—It’s not a Thing.(It might be a Thing.)





	when the edges are firm and the centres are soft

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [Japery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Japery/pseuds/Japery) in the [wesmashing](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/wesmashing) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> "I have a lot of passion for the lava cake." - Tyson Barrie
> 
> I want to see a boy bake his way into Tyson's heart. Maybe it starts with some kind of A360 baking competition where Tyson smokes them and Nate or Gabe fail miserably, and it doesn't start out as a seduction technique, just ultracompetitive boys refusing to be bad at something and making Tyson taste all their efforts, until they work their way up to Tyson's family lava cake and then boom: the oven's been preheating for love all along. I want to see all the cliche flour fights and wiping sugar off of someone's forehead and novelty aprons with horses on them they stole from EJ just the Full RomCom please.
> 
> * * *
> 
>  
> 
> IF YOU FOUND THIS BY GOOGLING YOURSELF AND YOUR LAVA CAKE RECIPE, PLEASE CLICK AWAY NOW! This is a work of fiction and while some of information about public figures might be accurate, nothing is true.
> 
> * * *
> 
> i forgot about the novelty aprons, but i hope the rest of this hits the full romcom feels! :)) 
> 
> -bug hugs to Ant for getting excited with me, and listening to me whine, whilst bouncing ideas with me<3  
> -also shoutout to Laura who doesn't even go here but was willing to be another set of eyes! i'm always gonna have fun make u laugh :*  
> -any and all remaining mistakes are my own

It wasn’t supposed to be a thing is the thing.

Sure, Tyson likes lava cake, and sure, he doesn’t even need to look at the index card with the recipe written under some rogue chocolate fingerprints when he gets a craving for chocolate anymore, and sure, maybe, he’s become as predictable as his mother when it comes to contributing to team potlucks.

But—

It’s not a Thing.

The article comes out on a Tuesday with little mainstream acknowledgement because even though Tyson regularly wakes up with the pride of Nova Scotia drooling on his shoulder after a night of binge watching Buzzfeed Unsolved, he is not the pride of any Canadian province, so mostly no one cares when nhl.com interviews him.

His mom calls him, which is nice, but that’s to tell him that if he’s going to share her lava cake recipe with the part of the world that cares about both hockey and Tyson Barrie, then Tyson Barrie will be making the lava cake for Christmas this year. Tyson points out that she found the recipe on the back of a package of semi-sweet baking chocolate and is then told that he’ll  permanently be in charge of making lava cake for all family gatherings unless he forgets that detail. He forgets that detail because he has a game to get ready for afterall.

(Victoria also calls him, but Tyson sends that straight to voicemail and deletes it half way through listening to her laugh through her own impression of him saying, “I just have so much passion for lava cake.”)

The Wednesday after the article comes out starts as a regular Wednesday: Tyson wakes up somehow both hot and cold in his hotel bed; he lets his alarm go off long enough that whoever is in the room next to his (Compher probably) bangs on their shared wall; Tyson bangs back; he presses snooze and he’s late for the bus to the airport because he can’t find the pants that he wanted to wear today. Turns out he packed them in a post game haze.

Gabe doesn’t give him as much shit as he should when Tyson takes the seat next to him, elbowing past EJ to get it so he and Gabe can finish the episode of Gilmore Girls that they started on the way to Pittsburgh. Instead, Gabe is squinting at something on his phone while continuing to pretend that he doesn’t need the glasses that are probably at the bottom of his bag. He returns the elbow that Tyson accidently puts in his spleen without looking up.

“Whatcha doing?” Tyson asks as he straightens up. He scoots in closer to see what Gabe’s doing, getting a whiff of Gabe’s woody aftershave in the process and tries not to breathe too deeply. Whatever _thing_ is going on between Tyson and Gabe is not an uppercase T thing, though Gabe is well aware of how good Tyson thinks he smells.

Gabe shoots up and tilts the screen away from Tyson, clutching his phone to his chest. There’s a beat where Tyson just looks at Gabe and Gabe just looks back, eyebrows drawn.

“Are you watching porn?” Tyson asks finally because he’s apparently not able to control his mouth.

“What? No.” Gabe doesn’t wear guilty very well, scowling at Tyson even though the parts of his cheeks that aren’t covered in beard are pink.

“Reading it?” Tyson reaches for the phone now that he’s committed to annoying Gabe. Gabe smacks his hand.

“Ouch— there’s no shame! We’ve all done it!” Tyson says.

Gabe wrinkles his nose at him. “You’ve read porn?”

“Some of us have sophisticated taste,” Tyson replies.

“I can have sophisticated tastes and not read porn Tyson, jeez.” Gabe looks over Tyson’s shoulder, frowning as he finishes the sentence. Tyson twists to see Colin standing in the aisle. Tyson nods at him, unconcerned; most of the team has overheard at least one side of one of his embarrassing conversations. Though, he’s been trying to be better about how loudly he answers the phone when he knows it’s his mom reminding him to clean his oven.

Colin shakes his head. “That’s a lot of information about Gabe this early,” he says, shaking his head as he shuffles past.

“Chronic oversharer,” Tyson agrees.

He gets deadarmed.

“Ouch! Why do you keep hitting me!?” Tyson rubs his arm, knowing it’s going to bruise. “Is it embarrassing porn? Judgement free zone Gabe, you know this.” He lowers his voice so he doesn’t get hit again.

“I’m— Nothing. Mind your business, Tyson.” Gabe is fully red now, and angles his body completely away from Tyson.

“Sheesh.” Tyson rolls his eyes, trying not to feel hurt. “You’re being weird.”

Gabe mutters something that Tyson doesn’t catch, maybe in another language, but definitely rude. Nate throws himself in the seat in front of them before Tyson can say anything back.

“Hey Tys, nice article,” Nate says.

Tyson glares; no one on the team has given him any shit about the article yet and he’s been hoping it would stay that way. It is not going to turn into a Thing.

“Hey Nate, nice face,” Tyson snaps.

“Weak dude.”

“Yeah, Tyson, I thought you have passion,” EJ shouts from the back of the bus. Tyson has no idea how he heard anything from back there, but he throws his middle finger up, so EJ is aware how rude eavesdropping is.

“Only passion for lava cake!” Nate shouts back.

“My sister already made fun of me for that— you guys are too slow.”

“Yeah, that’s a good one, buddy,” Nate says, laughing when Tyson thumps against the seat.

“Fuck you,” Tyson grumbles. “I’m never making you anything ever again.”

It’s a lie; Tyson loves baking for people more than he loves baking for himself. Nate knows it’s a lie too from the smirk he sends between the seats.

“What about me?” Josty asks. His eyes are big and round and it’s the look he uses to get Compher to do literally anything.

Tyson squints at him. “You’re on thin ice, Junior. Compher, you’re out.”

“Hey!”

The bus moves away from the curb. It’s a short ride to the airport from the hotel so no one is trying to sleep, which means that everyone jumps on the chance to chirp Tyson about lava cake once Nate sends the article to the group chat.

“You guys can make it yourself now, see if I care!” Tyson says loudly over Sammy carefully reading out the recipe for the fourth time.

“We don’t have the same passion,” Mikko says sadly, shaking his head. “It won’t be the same.”

Tyson throws his hands up and twists back to sit in his seat properly. He can feel himself getting wrinkles from how long he’s been glaring at his teammates.

“Your team is a bunch of assholes,” Tyson says to Gabe. He puts his knees up against the back of the seat, wrinkles in his suit be damned, and presses hard against where he hopes Nate’s back is.

Gabe hasn’t said anything to Tyson about the article, though Tyson did see him pull out his phone at the peak of EJ’s impression. Gabe breathes loudly out of his nose and doesn’t say anything.

Tyson nudges him. “Do something about your team, Gabriel.”

“Why are they only my team when they annoy you?” Gabe asks. He turns away from the window to look at Tyson, hopefully done with  whatever weirdness had him trying to ignore Tyson.

“They’re always your team with the way they annoy me,” Tyson says.

Gabe rolls his eyes, but he does distract Josty later on the plane while Tyson steals his headphone splitter so they can finish their episode.

***

Denver in December isn’t like, ridiculously cold, but there’s enough of a chill in the air that Tyson has wrapped a blanket around his shoulders while he’s downstairs ignoring the packing he should be doing upstairs. He came down to turn up the heat, got distracted, and now he’s been trying to beat this Candy Crush level for 20 minutes. It’s only a one night trip to St. Louis anyways and Tyson sleeps naked so he basically just needs a suit and his hockey shit. Half of that is already packed at the rink, and Tyson is well-practiced at picking out a suit half asleep so he starts the next level without feeling guilty.

The doorbell rings suddenly and he jumps. He stares at his front door for a beat, confused. No one he knows has the manners to knock, and he hasn’t recently gone on an Amazon spiral so he’s not expecting any packages. He checks his phone, in case he’s missed a message from someone, but there’s nothing.

Tyson vaguely wonders if he can pretend he’s not home, but before he decides to fully commit, the door opens. Tyson doesn’t scream so much as inhale loudly and choke on his spit.

“You should probably lock your door,” Gabe says, unconcerned that Tyson might be having a heart attack. He takes his shoes off and puts them nicely by the door like he always does. He's wearing his glasses, which means his eyes are tired, and like Tyson, hasn’t bothered to put on more than his sweats and a t-shirt. He looks comfortable in Tyson's place. “Anyone could just walk in.”

“You just walked in,” Tyson points out, getting his breath back. “What the fuck? After you rang the doorbell.” He frowns at Gabe. “Why’d you ring the doorbell if you were just gonna walk in?”

Gabe goes into the kitchen without answering. Tyson sighs and follows him.

“What are you doing?” Tyson asks, leaning against the door frame.

Gabe gives Tyson a look, like he can’t believe why Tyson would ever ask why Gabe is unpacking groceries from the bags he brought into Tyson’s kitchen completely unprompted. His eyes drop briefly to Tyson’s chest, where the neck from his “bro hard or bro home” tank top has stretched out enough to show some nip, and Tyson can feel himself blushing a little, but he refuses to feel bad about his lounging outfit choice. He didn’t dress for company. Tyson adjusts his blanket-cape and gives Gabe a look back.

“I need your help with something,” Gabe says finally. He kicks the freezer closed.

“I’m immediately suspicious,” Tyson says. “Was that ice cream?”

Gabe huffs him and from the canvas bag, he pulls out a casserole dish and gently places it on the dish towel he laid out in the middle of the island.

“It’s lava cake,” Gabe says.

“Is it?” Tyson tries not to wrinkle his nose. He’s not sure if he’s successful.

There’s definitely chocolate cake in the dish. Whoever filled the dish did so unevenly, so the splatters of batter along the edges are super burnt, while certain pockets look weirdly jiggly. He ignores Gabe’s tut— confirmation Tyson didn’t really need that it was Gabe that made the cake— and reaches a tentative hand out to poke it. He can feel residual heat, but the middle doesn’t give under his finger, even though he can see other parts of the cake are weirdly jiggly.

“I can’t decide if I’m madder about the lava cake jokes, or the massacre of chocolate,” Tyson says.

“Baking is hard!” Gabe says. He crosses his arms and looks so similar to how he might on the ice when the refs decide to play for the other team, that Tyson wonders how many attempts were made before this one. He also wonders why Gabe is trying to make lava cakes, but he figures he might get an answer if he sticks this one out.  

“Does it taste okay?” Tyson stares at the misshapen chocolate lump trying to  find a positive.

“Try it,” Gabe says.

“No thanks,” Tyson says, though he kinda means ‘fuck no’. “Why’s it so big?”

“I don’t have those… the little white cups the recipe wanted.”

“Stores usually do.”

Gabe glares at Tyson, but Tyson’s still having a hard time completely understanding what Gabe wants from him.

“Why’s it burnt?” Tyson pokes at it again, and Gabe smacks his hand. Tyson expects it, and dodges it with a smirk. “How long did you put it in, Gabe?”

Gabe scrunches his face. “40 minutes.”

Tyson’s jaw drops and he’s pretty sure his eyebrows disappear into his hair.

“The recipe said 10 minutes for four little ones and so with one big one I thought—…”

Tyson doesn’t know if Gabe finishes his sentence because he’s laughing too loudly to hear anything. It’s not often that Tyson is not the mess between the two of them.

“Tyson,” Gabe complains loudly drawing out the ‘o’ sound in Tyson’s name. He’s smiling a little, like he knows he’s ridiculous and wow, bashful is a good look on him.

“Sorry, sorry,” Tyson says. He uses his blanket to wipe his eyes. “Why are you even trying to make lava cake?”

Gabe doesn’t immediately answer, looking at a spot somewhere under Tyson’s ear. “Seems like an important skill to have,” Gabe finally says and that makes absolutely no sense, but who’s Tyson to judge? He’s spent more than one night trying to figure out how to make cheesecake that doesn’t crack.

“Do you want me to show you how?” Tyson asks.

Gabe nods. Tyson ties his cape tighter.

“Step one, get rid of that, oh my god why did you bring it?” Tyson points at Gabe’s cake. Gabe shrugs, and goes to scrape out the cake from the dish, dumping  the chunks into the garbage. He leaves it to soak in the sink. Tyson kinda meant just dump the whole thing, but kudos to Gabe for not just buying a new casserole dish.

“Okay, then these are what you want.” Tyson maneuvers around Gabe to get to the cupboard where he keeps his baking stuff. He pulls out four custard cups and a baking sheet, because if he’s going to show Gabe how to make lava cakes, he’s going to do it right. Also, he hates halving this recipe.

“Why do you have so many pans?” Gabe asks.

“No reason.” Tyson shuts the door. “Okay, go preheat the oven to 425.”

While Gabe fiddles with the buttons, frowning like the oven is a rocket ship, Tyson goes through his pantry and fridge for what they need. It’s a route that he’s overly familiar with, though he hasn’t made any lava cake for just himself since the end of the 2017 season, where he baked himself into a chocolate coma. That was rough.

“That’s a lot of butter,” Gabe says, done with the oven.

“Some of it’s for greasing the cups,” Tyson replies, rolling his eyes at Gabe. Tyson knows he's just being annoying for the sake of being annoying, especially since Gabe has recently jumped on the Bulletproof Coffee bandwagon with EJ.

Tyson puts the butter and cups down in front of Gabe. “Do that, eh?”

He eyeballs out enough the semi-sweet chocolate to be melted in the microwave because he doesn’t want to get a pot out for a double broiler. He steals a couple of chips for himself and shoves them into his mouth when he sees Gabe is still staring intently at one of the custard cups and butter, neither having moved since Tyson put them down.

“Unwrap the butter and like—” Tyson gestures with his hands, pressing two fingers of one into the circle of his thumb and forefinger of the other. “Rub the butter into it. Like this.” He twists his wrists, only realizing halfway through how lewd the gesture looks. It must help Gabe though, because he stops looking scared of the custard cups and finally picks one up.

Tyson takes the butter when Gabe’s finished with it and cuts up what they need to melt with the chocolate. He makes Gabe whisk them together and only makes fun of him a little when he burns his fingertips on the hot bowl.

“Cool, so stop being a baby and run that under water. Then, add the sugar and salt and mix.”

Gabe’s tongue pokes out while he concentrates, which is something Tyson knew about him, but it’s a totally different thing to see it while his forearms are flexing as he cracks and separates the eggs, frowning like the eggs could possibly beat him. Actually, they probably could based on Gabe's previous attempt. Tyson gets a little distracted watching that and forgets to tell Gabe not to dump all the flour in at once, which means Gabe gets a face full of dust.

“Tyson! You’re supposed to be helping me, stop laughing!” Gabe says. He’s got flour in his eyelashes and hair and across his nose and he’s scowling at Tyson like an angry ghost while he tries to wipe some of the mess off on his shirt.

“You’re making it worse.” Tyson is decidedly not looking at where he can now see Gabe’s stomach.

“You’re the worst,” Gabe says when he drops his shirt.

“Here—” Tyson’s used to his limbs moving without him thinking—most of hockey is basically muscle memory—but he’s not aware of taking the steps into Gabe’s space to wipe off the flour from his forehead. Gabe’s skin is soft under his thumb, and Tyson can feel and hear when Gabe softly says, “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Tyson says, just as softly.

He realizes he’s dropped his hand to Gabe’s cheek and has just been touching his face for too long when the oven beeps suddenly, signalling that it’s done preheating. Gabe and Tyson both jump, and they narrowly avoid poking Gabe’s eye out.

“Oh! Uh, keep stirring that,” Tyson says waving at the bowl. “Carefully though, don’t—”

Gabe stirs too vigorously and gets flour all over the counter. “I hate baking,” he announces, looking extremely put out.

“No, you don’t,” Tyson says. “Just— be gentle.” He doesn’t think again and grabs Gabe’s hand to show him how to gently fold the flour in. Gabe doesn’t protest and they’re both quiet while Tyson helps Gabe mix. Tyson is much slower to let go this time, and Gabe lets him guide his hand until all the flour is mixed in, squeezing Tyson's hand before he lets him let go.

“Why do you like baking so much?” Gabe asks while he’s dividing the batter up into the four custard cups. It’s not at all even; Tyson makes a note to set an earlier timer to check on the less full ones.

Tyson shrugs when Gabe blinks at him, expecting an answer. “I dunno. I like how happy baking makes people,” he says. “My mom’s baking never changed while we were moving around. It reminds me of home.”

“That’s really sweet Tys,” Gabe says seriously. Tyson shrugs again, butterflies in his stomach, and Gabe finishes pouring the batter with a small smile. Tyson feels warm as he watches Gabe poke his tongue out again to transfer the cups to the baking tray, and makes Tyson put the tray in the oven, citing “burnt fingers”. Tyson sets the timers with another eyeroll

“You said you brought ice cream?” Tysons asks, shaking off the oven mitts.

“No, you said I brought ice cream,” Gabe said. Tyson makes a face at him and Gabe goes to the freezer and pull out a pint of ice cream that Tyson knows he didn’t buy himself. It’s plain vanilla.

“Safe choice going with vanilla,” Tyson says. “But what really goes well with chocolate though, is vanilla bean.”

“I’m supposed to know that? We can’t all have a passion for lava cakes, Tys.”

Tyson rolls his eyes and throws the bit of flour that they haven’t gotten around to cleaning up yet. It gets all over Gabe’s already-dusted shirt, and he has the audacity to look offended, like his own stirring hasn’t already covered him in flour.

“Where’s your passion now Gabriel?” Tyson sticks out his tongue. He realizes his mistake in taunting Gabe when Gabe’s face turns thoughtful. “Gabe, no!” is all Tyson gets out before he gets a mouthful of flour.

Gabe laughs at him, and takes the bag of flour off the counter to clutch to his chest like an absolute asshole who doesn’t play fair. Tyson does the next best thing he can think of to get at Gabe. He dips a finger into the dirty mixing bowl. Gabe’s still laughing so he doesn’t see when Tyson darts in to wipe his chocolate finger right across Gabe’s cheek.

“Hey, fuck you!” Gabe grabs Tyson’s wrist and once Tyson gets free, it’s war.

When the first set of timers go off, Tyson has taken the mixing bowl hostage so Gabe can’t get his fingers in it, but he’s still throwing flour in Tyson’s direction like a dick.

They call a truce when the second timer goes off, and Gabe catches the oven mitts that Tyson whips at him. Luckily the smaller cakes don’t look to be too burnt from their extra time in the oven.

“Let them sit for a minute,” he instructs. Gabe nods, and looks very seriously at the lava cakes. Tyson looks around his kitchen so he doesn’t get caught staring.

“Oh shit, we made such a mess,” Tyson says, grimacing. There’s flour on almost all the surfaces, and chocolate fingerprints everywhere else.

“You started it,” Gabe says, looking completely unapologetic. He is staring at Tyson, and doesn’t look away when he gets caught. He reaches out and brushes a hand through Tyson’s hair, causing a sprinkle of flour to fall onto Tyson’s shoulder.

“Thanks, that really helped,” Tyson says drily. Gabe grins and does it again and again until they’ve both cracked and suddenly having a flour fight in the middle of Tyson’s kitchen is the funniest thing either of them have heard of.

They catch their breath, and Tyson shows Gabe how to run the knife around the edge of the cup and flip the cake on the plate. He’s a quick study, proudly grinning when he does it without splitting it down the middle. He watches when Tyson cuts his cake in half and all the oozy middle flows out onto the plate.

“See how actual lava cakes are supposed to look?” Tyson says, nudging Gabe with his shoulder. The panic on Gabe’s face when his cake slips dangerously on the plate is nothing short of adorable.

“Does it taste like real cake though?” Gabe raises an eyebrow when he recovers.

“Try it.” Tyson is nothing if not confident about any and all lava cake that he had a hand in making is delicious and looks good.

First, Gabe grabs a knife and cuts his cake down the middle, watching the ooze with a critical eye. Then, apparently satisfied, he scoops a bite off, bigger than Tyson would’ve expected him to take. He doesn’t get ice cream on the spoon which, rookie mistake, but Tyson figures there will be time late for Gabe to learn. Gabe’s eyes close when he puts the spoon in his mouth, and Tyson’s immediately go to his own lava cake when Gabe moans.

“Holy shit,” he says around the spoon. “Holy shit, that’s so good.”

“Yeah,” Tyson says dumbly, knowing he’s blushing. He’s never heard that exact sound out of Gabe is the thing— even though Gabe totally has tried lava cake when Tyson’s brought them to team things— and he’s having trouble thinking only about the other places Gabe makes similar sounds.  

“Tys, shit, it’s so good,” Gabe says. There’s chocolate on his mouth now and Tyson shouldn’t stare, but then Gabe’s tongue comes out to lick at it and he misses.

“Try it.”

“I have. More than once.”

Gabe ignores Tyson and holds his own spoon to Tyson’s mouth with a piece of cake on it. His eyes are bright and Tyson opens his mouth, wondering what life choices he’s made to get here. The lava cake tastes exactly as Tyson expects it to, which is good he guesses, considering how wrecked the cake Gabe made on his own was.

“‘S good,” Tyson says, when Gabe takes the spoon out of his mouth and Gabe smiles wide enough that Tyson can probably see his molars if he looks hard enough. “Good jo—”

The rest of Tyson’s sentence is cut off when Gabe presses his lips to Tyson’s. There’s a brief moment when Tyson is tasting double chocolate, from both his and Gabe’s mouths, and then Gabe pulls away.  

“You had chocolate on your mouth,” Gabe says. He won’t look at Tyson.

“Did I?”

“Yep.” Gabe pops the ‘p’ like he knows Tyson finds annoying.

“I think you missed some,” Tyson says. There’s a beat of silence that Gabe breaks by snorting.

“That was so cheesy, oh my god,” he says, resting his forehead on Tyson’s. “Why do I like you so much?”

“Gabe,” Tyson says.

“Yeah?”

“Kiss me again.”

Gabe nods and presses closer, boxing Tyson in with his arms and leans in, almost teasingly. Tyson makes a sound at the back of his throat and goes up on his tiptoes so they’re kissing again and Gabe hums happily into Tyson’s mouth, like he normally does when he gets his way and goads Tyson into another kiss. Tyson runs his hands through Gabe’s hair, because he knows how much Gabe likes it, and his hands come away sticky. He wipes the batter that got in Gabe’s hair during the kitchen fight off on the back of Gabe’s shirt.

“I take it back, I don’t like you at all,” Gabe says between trying to suck the taste of chocolate off Tyson’s tongue. Tyson doesn’t answer for a beat, too busy letting Gabe explore his mouth.

“Wait!” Tyson says, thinking of something. The sound Gabe makes might be considered a whine, but he lets Tyson shove him away to look at him. “Did you actually fuck up making a lava cake, or were you just pretending?” Tyson asks.

Gabe’s brow furrows and he groans, dropping his head to Tyson’s chest. “Really Tys?”

“What?”

Gabe sighs, but it’s not his super put-out one so Tyson knows that he’s getting an answer.

“I fucked up so bad,” Gabe mumbles into Tyson’s collarbone. “I really wanted to impress you.”

“Aw, you already do.”

“Gross,” Gabe repeats, rubbing his stubble against Tyson’s neck. Tyson knows he’s doing it to be distracting and it’s working, even though he knows they should also talk a little bit more. He grabs Gabe’s face to bring him back in for more kissing, but this time it’s Gabe who says, “Wait!” Tyson watches half in disbelief as Gabe goes back in for another bite of lava cake.

“Okay, I’m good,” he says, and kisses Tyson.

He tastes like lava cake.

It might be a Thing.

**Author's Note:**

> gabe is looking up videos of how to make lava cake, i don't make the rules
> 
> im on [tumblr](http://pongpalace.tumblr.com/post/) and [twitter ](https://twitter.com/sharksandsoup) talking with the void :))
> 
> thanks to the mods of the challenge for organizing!


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